


"This Shit is Weird" by Varric Tethras

by AliceRelevance



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Teen!inquisitor, Young Inquisitor (Dragon Age), dwarf solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceRelevance/pseuds/AliceRelevance
Summary: Malika Cadash is trying to save the world without freaking out. The only problem is, she is freaking out so hard. At least Varric is there to listen to her.





	"This Shit is Weird" by Varric Tethras

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've posted a fic to the public since like 2015 and my first fic posted on AO3. Basically, this is an excerpt from the long narrative I've created in my head for my Inquisitor who is half dwarf and half human. I needed to get it out and written, and I'm hoping the rest of her story will follow into a word document soon. This takes place after you recruit the Redcliffe mages. Enjoy!

“Varric, can I talk to you?”  
The writer looked up from his manuscript as the dwarf in front of him shifted from foot to foot. The Herald of Andraste Malika Cadash was not usually someone who shifted nervously from foot to foot, preferring to be blunt and direct like the warrior she was. However, since she had returned from recruiting mages in alliance at Redcliffe, she had been more withdrawn and quiet. Varric pushed a chair out with his foot, “Take a seat, Herald.”

Malika bit her lip and looked around the tavern. “Can we talk somewhere more private?”

Now intrigued, Varric got up and followed her out of the tavern and through the gates of Haven to where the tree line of the woods began. Once there, she began pacing while Varric looked on and finally asked, “What’s this about, Skitters?”

She looked at him funny. “What? ‘Skitters’?”

“It’s about to become your nickname if you don’t get to the point of why you’re acting so nervous,” he replied. Though he had spent a lot of time with the dwarf in Haven, he hadn’t traveled with her on missions very much and hadn’t been sure on what her personality was and what to call her. She was stumping him just like Buttercup had stumped him at first. 

“Right. Okay,” and she took a breath.  
“I’venotbeentellingthetruthandnowit’sbecometoomuchandIneedtotellsomeonewhat’sgoingonbeforeIexplode”

Varric blinked. “Maybe your name should be Jabber or Babble instead. Can you say that again but while breathing?”

Malika sighed. “When we went to Redcliffe, when we went into the future, it finally kind of sunk in that I could have actually died. I could have died and no one would know who to contact to tell them that I died, because I haven’t talked about my family with anyone. And now I’m telling you because I think you’ll have an idea about what I’m talking about.”  
“Because I’m a dwarf?” he joked.

“Because you’re from the Free Marches.”

“Look, Malika, it’s not good for your health to think about dying and death when nothing might happen. We’re gonna get the breach closed, your hand will be fixed, and then you and I can go back to the Free Marches and live –“  
“Varric I’m fourteen years old,” she blurted out.

Varric processed this for a minute. “What the fuck do you mean you’re fourteen?”

She ran her hand through her hair again and started pacing again. “It’s my height! It’s always made me look older than I actually am and has always been a factor when people look at me and judge how ready I am for an experience and to be honest everything happened so fast at the beginning that there just wasn’t a good time to stop and say ‘Oh hey, now that the giant hole in the sky isn’t trying to immediately kill us, do you mind if we send word to my mother back in Ostwick and get her permission to allow me to continue being the symbol of a heretical and slightly illegal movement?’ But then Redcliffe happened and no one knows where I am and I’m gonna die or something bad is going to happen soon I just know it and –“ 

Realizing the leader of their movement was heading into hyperventilation territory, Varric reached out to stop her pacing, “Whoa, whoa there, Jitters. Just breathe. In and out,” and he had her copy his breathing. “Okay, so you’re fourteen. You’ve been through a lot of shit for someone who should still be playing tag or something like that. Maker, kid. I wish you’d told someone sooner.”

“What good what that have done, Varric, honestly?” she asked, “I still would need to be around to close rifts, I still would need to close the breach, I’d probably still have to learn how to defend myself in battle.”  
“But we could have done something to help you, to ease the stress of it all. At the rate this is going you’ll either be as gray as Hero or as bald as Chuckles by the time we save the world.”  
Malika let out a breath and sat on the snowy ground. “I just need to let someone know who I am just in case something happens to me.”  
“Well okay, Squirt, who are you?”  
Malika shook her head, “Mm-mm, my nickname is not going to be ‘Squirt.’”

“Too late,” Varric grinned, “You’re the youngest member of the Inquisition now and also the shortest (“I’m taller than you!” she replied indignantly) so Squirt it is.”  
She huffed and said, “Okay, so to preface this, you live in the Free Marches, have you heard the story of Bann Trevelyan’s Three Bastards?”  
Varric searched his memory for any legends with that title and once came up. “Sort of, didn’t have like an affair with an elf or something?”

“But before he bedded an Elf he had a pre-marriage affair with a Tal-Vashoth mercenary. Story goes he went out to have one last night of freedom before he was to be married to a noble woman from Starkhaven and had a roll around with the mercenary. He married the noble lady and for four years they had trouble producing an heir, he went out and had another affair with an Elf from the Ostwick alienage. A year later when he and his wife had twins – a boy and a girl – an Elf-blooded child was left at their estate with a note claiming that he was Bann Trev’s bastard.”  
“Damn, that’s an embarrassing complication. Did they contest it?” Varric asked.

“Lady Trevelyan sent word for an alchemist that could do a blood test to prove that the Bann was not the father of the Elf child. She was proven wrong. A year after that, a Qunari girl no older than five shows up at the estate with a note that reads ‘Mother dead. Can’t watch her. Take care of your spawn.’”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. The same alchemist was sent for and the test once again proved that this little horned girl was the product of the affair Bann Trev had before his wedding night.”

“So, you’ve got an Elf and a Qunari to look after as well as your own two children and a wife that is sure to bring you no peace after learning all of this? I would not wish to be Bann Trevelyan, or the bastards for that matter. Scorned wives of fathers with bastard children can be pretty cruel,” Varric stated.

“Actually, Bann Trevelyan was a very kind and loving father. He treated all of his children equally and made sure Lady Trevelyan did as well. Not that he needed to keep tabs on her; Lady Trevelyan was also very kind and made sure the children were respected by the inner workings of the estate and also the court,” Malika explained.  
Varric thought about this for a minute. “Y’know Squirt, you’re talking about this with a lot of familiarity.”

Malika shrunk in on herself and looked down. “Ten years later, Lady Trevelyan was unable to carry a child to term and there had been no more blood heirs to the estate. Also around this time, a carta of dwarf merchants were making themselves a name in the lower parts of Ostwick. Bann Trevelyan rode out to meet with the leader of the carta, a woman called Brona. They struck up a deal and came up with the contract that the carta could do dealings in the city, but they would have to have legitimate suppliers and not resort to thuggery. Somehow, Bann Trev managed to seduce the carta leader into sleeping with him –“ 

“Holy shit. Holy Shit, Squirt! You’re half human?!” Varric asked with wide eyes.  
Malika nodded. “It’s why I appear taller than most dwarves and get away with looking older. Humans don’t age as well as dwarves and Bann Trevelyan was a very tall man.”

“Was?”

“My father died two years ago, when I was twelve. When word broke out into the city, a dwarf from the Cadash carta named Daphne heard about it and came up to the estate to broker a new deal with the newly widowed Lady Trevelyan,” Malika swallowed. “Daphne is my aunt, and I learned that day that I was part dwarf.”

“You grew up believing you were totally human?” Varric asked in disbelief.

She shrugged. “My father’s mother and my mother’s father were both short and that was what they told people who asked about my height.”  
“Wait, you were with the carta when they found you at the conclave. What happened there?”

“I was mad at the Lady Trevelyan for not being honest with me and I was having an identity crisis. I found my aunt in the city and asked her to take me on and teach me about my birth mother. She accepted and trained me to be a bodyguard. When she heard about what was happening at the conclave, she wanted to get a spy on the inside to watch the proceedings and I volunteered. If anyone asked I looked human enough to claim that I was a serving girl. And then shit hit the fan,” she finished.

Varric was speechless for once. No quip or comment could be made that would make this unbelievable story more real. “You’re not shitting me, are you? Not even I could come up with something like that that sounds so fake.”

“If you don’t believe me, ask Madame Vivienne. Mother used to invite her to her salons all the time.”

“The Iron Lady?!”

“Yeah! I’m actually very surprised she hasn’t called me out or let me know that she knows something because I remember her but I don’t think she recognizes me. I mean, that’s weird, right? She runs in those types of circles and she helped my sister get settled in the Ostwick circle before the rebellion –“ 

“Wait, your sister is a mage? Which one?”

“Evelyn, the human one,” Malika’s eyes turned sad. “I was four when she was put into the circle. She had had magic since she was eight, but father kept her at home in private because he wanted to keep his children together. She had a court presentation the year before, and when one of the possible suitors got a bit handsy, she accidentally froze him. No amount of social clout or Game tactics could prevent his family from demanding she be made tranquil.”

“But she wasn’t, right?”  
“No, but she did get sent away, and I didn’t ever get to see her except on her birthday, and that was only because father donated enough money to the circle. She didn’t want to go.”

Varric understood now why Malika had made an alliance with the free mages. Although he was an ass, Bartrand had still been Varric’s first friend growing up, and not a day went by when he wished he could talk to his brother again, even if it was to chew him out for wrecking Kirkwall.

“After that,” Malika drew him from his reverie, “Herah, my oldest sister, grew fed up with having to stay in the shadows and left to find her mother’s mercenary group. She was nineteen then. When they left, it was just me, Mahanon – my elven brother – and Maxwell, who is Evie’s twin. Mahanon and I were thick as thieves. Maxwell could go fuck himself though.”

Varric snorted. “Sibling rivalry there, Squirt?” 

“Only on his side,” she huffed. “Technically, he’s set to inherit the cairn when Lady Trevelyan dies, but I can contest it because of how on paper I’m technically human, and I think he thinks I might do that or something? I could honestly care less.”

“Okay. So just to recap: You’re not eighteen (“Nope”), You’re fourteen (“Yep”), You’re part of a nobility (“Correct”), and for all you know your family thinks you’re dead? Is there anything I’m missing or that you want to add?”

“I can speak Qunlat and Elven Dalish pretty well, thought I’m told my accent is terrible.”

“Holy shit, Squirt. The Seeker is gonna kill you,” Malika’s face blanched.

“Oh fuck me.”


End file.
